Internet search and advertising giant Google is cutting back its sprawling offices located outside Toronto in the 905 area, consolidating in Toronto’s downtown core and opening new head offices within easy reach of downtown condos. The reason for this move is to facilitate the ability to find young talent and to retain employees who have purchased or are looking to purchase condominiums in the downtown core.
Companies today are increasingly accepting the higher downtown core rents in exchange for the value of more centrally located downtown Toronto office space where they can draw from the pool of young, highly educated workers moving into newly built condos that are rising in the city’s centre. The fact is that young people aren’t happy with the long commute to and from the suburbs. These young professionals want to live and work downtown because it’s an exciting and vibrant place. Many want to be car-free and be able to take transit or bicycle to work.
The growth in the condo market has been booming in the city for the last decade or so, but has only been mega-booming for the last five or six years. With more and more young Canadians giving up on the dream of a four-bedroom house in the suburbs and instead staying in the city’s core, companies who had previously moved out of the core are returning, looking for downtown Toronto office space themselves. Some of the larger companies who have made the move to downtown Toronto office space are Deliotte, Coca-Cola and now Google – but many other small and medium-sized companies are also now competing for that same office space for rent Toronto.
Then there are the downtown fringe areas where some companies are moving operations to that are still close to downtown. Areas like the Port Lands to the east where Corus Entertainment has consolidated its employees; the Rail Lands where telecommunications company Telus has centralized its workforce; and Liberty Village where satellite radio company Sirus XM has its headquarters. These are all areas that are being developed by both commercial and condo developers to allow people to live near their office space Toronto.